CLIENT: Friends of Karen
Challenge
This nonoprofit, which helps families who have a child with cancer. needed to increase its visibility and donations. We completely redesigned their brand identity and website to be a strategic tool that would serve the organization well for a long time.
The old site, which Friends of Karen had been using for a long time, contained information about their history and services, had some information about their events and contained a video. It had a homespun feel with images of the children they have helped that conveyed a sense of love and caring. Yet, the site lacked the sophistication that would reflect the organization’s maturity and professionalism. The website needed to stand out and captivate donors and families as well as healthcare profession
Solution
In this example of a successful nonprofit website redesign, we addressed the following elements.
Branding: The site features the new logo in a predominant position to identify the organization. The tagline was enlarged from the normal logo and tagline configuration to make it immediately clear what the organization does.
Message: To tell Friends of Karen’s story, the homepage features a sequence of 4 rotating images with client testimonials. This is positioned “above the fold” so that it is the first thing seen and can establish the tone for the site. The main message under the photo is written from the client’s point of view, recognizing the hardship and emotions the families feel, the effects of the problem (explaining why Friends of Karen exists) and sets up Friends of Karen as the solution.
Navigation: Navigation is split between the items for a donor, with 3 tabs on the top — About Us, Ways to Give, and Get Involved, while the main services for families are down the left side. The right hand panel contains the “actions” that people can take.
Action Box: An Action Box, which appears on every page, includes the Join Our Email List sign up, Search the site feature, Donate button, links to social media, and an Email a Friend feature.
Images: We used different images for each page on the site – about 80 in all. Rather than use stock images, we used photos of the actual kids and families that Friends of Karen has helped.
Colors: Color is used to establish brand recognition and to aid in navigation. Specific colors indicate the various sections on the site – orange indicates action items, purple is used for information about Friends of Karen and its services, and violet is used for donations and ways to give. Underneath the Action Box in the right hand column are the Event, Photo Gallery and News features. These elements that change are grouped together and colored orange to signal that they change.
Content Management System: Like most nonprofit organizations of their size, Friends of Karen does not have staff who know web programming, so it was essential that the site be easy to update by anyone. To meet this need, the site was created in Drupal, with a full content management system that allows Friends of Karen to add and delete pages and to edit text and photos.
Online Donations: Acceptiva is used to handle online donations and registration for events.
Other Features: The site is programmed so that when Friends of Karen adds a News item or Event, a separate page with that item is created, and it is also automatically added to the list of News or Events, and the latest entries are automatically posted to the homepage. We added a module that imports photos onto the site from Friends of Karens’ Flickr albums. The site also features Friends of Karen videos hosted on YouTube, newsletters and news coverage. There are also links to their Facebook page.
Overall, the site presents a dramatic new look for the organization that has helped it to exceed its year end fundraising goal.
Links
- See the full case study of this nonprofit branding process.
- See other websites.
- See other nonprofit marketing case studies.
Red Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites and marketing campaigns for nonprofits and businesses to increase visibility and awareness and improve fundraising and advocacy effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.
